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Cold Spring Harbor
Cold Spring Harbor is Billy Joel's solo debut album. The album was released on November 1, 1971 on the Family Productions U.S. label. and later re-issued on Columbia Records in 1983. The album title was named after a hamlet of the same name in the town of Huntington, New York (which is a seaside community near Billy's hometown). Album Background The album was released by Family Productions, but through an error in the album's mastering, the songs played slightly too fast which caused Billy's voice to sound unnaturally high. Billy joked that he sounded more like one of The Chipmunks than himself. According to a long standing rumor, when Billy first heard the finished product, he "ripped it off the turntable, ran out of the house and threw record down the street." The owner of Family Productions (and the owner of the original master tapes), Artie Ripp was responsible for the production error and the mistake cost him his friendship with Billy. He had originally signed the then-unknown 22-year old Billy to a ten-record contract that stripped him of all rights to the original tapes and to the publishing rights to all current and future songs As part of a deal with Columbia Records to release Billy from his record contract, Artie was still able to collect large royalties on sales of Billy's biggest hit records long after his acrimonious departure from Family Productions (up until his 1986 album "The Bridge"). Artie only sold the publishing rights to Billy's song catalog back to Billy reluctantly after intense pressure from CBS/Columbia Records president Walter Yetnikoff who claimed he had to threaten Artie to finalize the deal. Nevertheless, Artie was legally able to re-mix and re-release an updated version of the album in 1983 through Columbia Records without any involvement from Billy. In a 2011 interview with actor Alec Baldwin, Billy stated that despite the remix, he believes the album still doesn't sound very good. While the 1983 album version is slowed down to the correct speed, many changes have been made to the original recording. The string tracks arranged by Artie and Jimmie Haskell were added to a few songs ("She's Got a Way," "Why Judy Why" and "You Can Make Me Free") while the aforementioned song "You Can Make Me Free" was truncated by nearly three minutes (removing most of the original tail-end, fadeout jam). The acoustic guitar and original drum track from the song "Everybody Loves You Now" were removed in favor of a new drum track performed by Mike McGee, and the pedal steel guitar and drums from the song "Turn Around" were edited out in favor of a new drum track by McGee and overdubbed keyboards by Al Campbell, as well as a Fender Rhodes piano played by L.D. Dixon. The original bass, drums and orchestration for the song "Tomorrow Is Today" were also excised. Album Composition The lyrics of the song "Tomorrow Is Today" were derived from a note Billy had written when he tried to commit suicide by drinking furniture polish. He was found by his drummer and was taken to a hospital where his stomach was pumped. Billy would later release live versions of the song "She's Got a Way" and "Everybody Loves You Now" on his 1981 album "Songs in the Attic." Tracklisting (All the songs were written by Billy Joel) #She's Got a Way (3:00 Original LP) (2:51) #You Can Make Me Free (6:05 Original LP) (2:59) #Everybody Loves You Now ((3:00 Original LP) (2:49) #Why Judy Why (3:05 Original LP) (2:58) #Falling of the Rain (2:46 Original LP) (2:38) #Turn Around (3:49 Original LP) (3:06) #You Look So Good to Me (2:42 Original LP) (2:29) #Tomorrow Is Today (5:20 Original LP) (4:40) #Nocturne (2:48 Original LP) (2:46) #Got to Begin Again (3:04 Original LP) (2:52) Chart Performance When "Cold Spring Harbor" was re-issued by Columbia Records, the album managed to peak at number 158 on the Billboard 200, number 95 on the U.K. Albums chart and number 44 on the Oricon Albums chart in Japan. Album Personnel *Producer: Artie Ripp *Executive producer: Irwin Mazur *Engineers: Larry Elliott, John Bradley, Artie Ripp *Second engineer: Michael Stone *Assistant engineer: Gordon Watanabe *Remixing: Artie Ripp (note: the actual mix engineer asked for his name to be left off the credits) *Original LP Mastering: Bob Huges *Original CD Mastering: Doug Sax *CD Remastered by Joseph Palmaccio at Sterling Sound (note: it was erroneously credited to Ted Jensen) *Editing: Artie Ripp, Larry Elliott *Director: Artie Ripp *Arrangers: Jimmie Haskell, Artie Ripp Category:Albums